Profiles in profile writing

A friend of mine (Cinder's mom, actually--oh, and by the way, Cinder's brother is for sale if any of you are interested) is taking a writing class at the Loft, the local literary center, and yesterday she stopped by my desk to tell me about it. One of her first assignments is to start working on a profile of someone interesting.

Which reminded me of my summer living in the Thurber House. One of the obligations of my fellowship was to teach a twice-weekly, three-hour night class at OSU. It was a graduate-level magazine writing class, and for several of the students it was the last class they had to take before completing their advanced degree. I assumed that the quality of student would be high, and I was a little intimidated, not having a master's degree myself. (Or, ahem, a bachelor's degree.)

(I had never taught before and would not have made it through that class without the help of my friend George in Duluth, who is a college professor and who I e-mailed frequently, possibly daily, with desperate basic questions. "How do you fill three hours?" Etc.)

Anyway, the profile assignment: I gave this assignment to my students, too. I was looking for a very short profile, maybe 400 words, just a sketch that summed up the essence of someone, not a complete biography. I handed out examples. We talked about it. I gave them advice and suggestions. They did not have many questions. And then I sent them out into the world....

And, when they turned in their assignments, I realized that I had neglected to give them one crucial instruction, one that it would never have occurred to me to give them (and apparently never occurred to George, either). That is: please do not choose your spouse, your boyfriend, your best friend or your brother as your interview subject.

It had never occurred to me that the students would pick someone they knew to profile. That violates one of the cardinal rules of journalism: your friends are not your sources. (And your sources are not your friends.)

I remember sitting in my attic apartment in the haunted Thurber House that summer, Toby sleeping at my feet (I mention Toby so that I can include a gratuitous picture of him in the Thurber House bookstore) paging through the profiles with astonishment.

I still remember the names of some of the students, though I will not include them here on account of the power of Google. But the first profile I read was by a guy named M.S., who had interviewed his brother, who had been "fatally shot."

Wow. An interview from beyond the grave! I saw problems with this one, and not just that it was his brother he chose to profile. (It turned out that M.S. had meant "fatefully," not "fatally," but I would argue that "fatefully" was not the right word, either.)

His profile started like this: "It was just another night on High Street, thousands of cars cruising back and forth, drinking, driving, looking for a good time." Does anyone see a problem with that sentence? Oh, those drinking and carousing cars...

I turned to the next profile. A short, balding, doughy faced guy named P.C. had started his profile this way, with a quote, and with a boring quote at that: " 'I love my job,' said T.C."

T.C. was his wife. He profiled his wife! And he made her extremely boring!

Next profile. Ah, this was a little better. This one was about a karate instructor. But man, it was dull. Just some guy yammering on and on about his chi or, possibly, his yin. No description, no movement, no glimpse inside the dojo. Just a guy talking earnestly. I asked the student about it later, suggesting that she might want to revise the piece to include some scenes inside the classroom.

The student, who had huge eyes and always wore a cute little backwards ballcap to class, shook her head vehemently. "My boyfriend won't let me," she said.

I waited for her to elaborate. What possible business could this be of her boyfriend?

"He's the karate instructor," she said. "And he said that trying to describe the karate classroom would be disrespectful to his art."

I barely made it through that class, George's steady and encouraging e-mails notwithstanding. I held the last session at the Thurber House, where I served wine and gave away stacks of magazines that I had been accumulating all summer--the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Granta, Harper's. Most of the students--graduate students in journalism at a top university--had told me that they'd never read any of those magazines.

The ballcap-wearing girl told me that night that I had changed her life. She had planned on getting out of journalism but had found my class so inspiring that she had decided to keep it as her major. I put my head down on the table and wondered if I had done a terrible thing. Up in the attic, away from everyone, I could hear Toby howl.

I told all of this to Cinder's mom yesterday, and we agreed that her fellow students are probably better than mine were. And as long as she doesn't interview Cinder's dad--or Cinder--for her profile, she'll almost certainly be the star of the class.

Yikes. Am I turning into my parents? And if so, which one?

Last night I was walking around downstairs, shutting the windows before bedtime, when it occurred to me that it wasn't all that long ago when I rolled my eyes at my parents for doing exactly the same thing.

I was up in Duluth, helping out after one of my dad's surgeries, and it was a hot night. My parents had no fans, no air conditioning, and before bed they instructed me to shut all the windows so that nobody could break in.

Oh, good idea, I thought. Nothing like making the house even stuffier.

It'd be rather arduous for someone to break in--slit a screen, and then hoist themselves several feet off the ground and then sort of shimmy through. And they lived in a perfectly nice neighborhood where that was unlikely to happen. I sighed at their silly worries and shut all the windows, perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary, to make my point.

And now I do it every night too.

I lay in bed and thought about this strange development, and I wondered in what other ways I am like my weird and quirky parents. And sadly, I thought of several:

--I do not like phone calls after about 9 p.m. I find them alarming. (I remember in my callow youth calling my parents up at any old time, and my father, his voice shaky, telling me that any phone call after 9 p.m. was assumed to be bad news. Huh? I said. But now when the phone rings late, my heart briefly stops.)

--If I am away from the house and I hear a siren, I instantly think it's headed to my house. (Though who would have called 911? Boscoe?)

Is this what getting older means? Constantly catastrophizing? Perhaps only if you come from my particular parents. Maybe if I'd had other parents, I'd be seeing other weird quirks.

Help me out here. Surely I'm not the only one. Do you see signs of your parents coming out in you?

Elvis under the stars

Looking--but not sounding--a little like Leon Redbone. Quite fun.

He played a lot of old stuff, and he played for almost two hours.


The boys were cowering in the basement while we were gone, drugged up on Benadryl and yet still quivering from the fireworks. Driving home there were firecrackers on nearly every block--in alleys, in the parking lot of the closed Sears store, shooting into the air from various backyards. The family at the end of our block had to haul their explosives out of the way when we turned into the alley to get to our garage.

The rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-pop-pop-BANG! sounded like small arms fire.

But the concert was great.

The man of the hour

Happy fourteenth birthday, Boscoe T. Smudge!

Adorable Cinder. Sweet Cinder. Sharp-toothed Cinder.

Sweet little Cinder came by again last night. Here she is, posing prettily for a picture for her dad.

She and Riley chased each other all over the yard and wore each other out; he went back in the house and went to bed at about 9 p.m. and she toppled over in the grass underneath one of those plastic footstools about a half-hour later.

I'd forgotten what a sweet warm feeling it is to have a little furry trusting bundle in your lap.

I'd forgotten how needle-sharp those little teeth are, and how puppies want to chew everything, including, um, one's ears.

Kiss of death

Up until now, I've refrained from saying anything here about the governor of South Carolina, a man who built a career praising God and heterosexual family values and then suddenly found himself whooshed into the dizzying vortex of unexpected love. What a shock that must have been! My goodness. 

I don't want to make fun of the man; he fell in love. This is clearly different than Gary Hart with a bimbo on his knee; this is (as the governor said today) a matter of finding his soul mate.  Granted, his soul mate turns out to be an Argentinian firebomb with "magnificent parts," but that just means he's lucky, right?

You can't choose who you love, and sometimes very good people fall in love inconveniently and inappropriately. Sometimes they do the "right" thing and stay married anyway, and often are miserably incredibly horrifically unhappy for years, and so is the spouse. An entire lifetime can be built on guilt and blame, and I'm not sure who that serves.

And sometimes they leave the marriage, and they are embarrassed and humiliated (depending on how famous they are, and how loudly pious they have been). Either way, it's inconvenient and very tough.

The governor has said from the beginning that he is trying to work on his marriage, and I say, good for you. Go ahead and try. His wife seems pretty resililent, and while she is not making excuses for him, she's leaving the door open.

Until .... may I venture a guess? Until today. Today he was quoted saying something that, in my view, is the Kiss of Death when it comes to a relationship.

Here's what the AP reported:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he "crossed lines" with a handful of women other than his mistress — but never had sex with them.

The governor says he "never crossed the ultimate line" with anyone but Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentine at the center of a scandal that has derailed Sanford's once-promising political career.

During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he's trying to fall back in love with his wife.

Um.... isn't this what press secretaries are for? To stop governors from saying things like this, from shooting themselves in the foot?  It's bad enough for him to admit he "crossed lines" with other women. Worse still to say he "crossed the ultimate line" with someone. Oh, what a late-night talk show punch line that will be.

And even worse to call his lover his soul mate--ouch, the poor wife.  But the worst, the very worst, the kiss of death: telling the world that he's "trying to fall back in love" with his wife.

I can hear her now, seething. Don't do me any favors, buddy!  I'm sure he didn't mean to insult her, but oh, my, oh, my, how patronizing; how condescending; how futile to "try to fall in love" with someone.

In the exchange of love letters, the governor sounded appalled and terrified at what he and Maria had done, crossing that ultimate line. "We need to find a way to put the genie back in the bottle," he wrote. To which the lovely Maria responded, in her charming Spanglish, that she didn't want to put the genius back in the bottle.

Ah. His genius. Is that what he calls it? 

"His wife is going to be so pissed when she reads that 'fall in love' comment," I said to Doug. "Wives can forgive a lot, but that comment? He's a dead man."

Said Doug, "Do you think she'll cut his Copernicus off?"

Late night TV, here it comes...

Three Dog Blog has three dogs--but just for one evening

Meet Cinder. She's a nine-week-old Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever. Apparently when she's full-grown she'll look a lot like a golden retriever, only smaller. She belongs to some friends who brought her over last night so she could meet the boys.


It went pretty well. Boscoe barked a lot out of excitement, trying to get her to play. Riley growled once, when she came up and wanted me to pet her while I was petting him. But otherwise they got along great.


If they got too overwhelming, Cinder just climbed out of their way.


She also figured out how to squeeze under the fence and escape into the neighbors' yard. Boscoe used to do this when he was tiny, too. Unlike Boscoe, though, Cinder always came right back.


She's quite fetching. But she moved so fast it was hard to get a good picture. Most of mine are just blurs of gold; this one was taken by Doug, who has more patience.


Riley and Cinder took time to smell the petunias.


They left around 9. I have a feeling that Cinder slept well last night. We're hoping to do this again soon.

The Hack must morph

I need a new title for my book.  I was talking to my editor the other night and I broached this idea--tentatively, since I was pretty wedded to "Birth of a Hack" and assumed he was, too. (All his emails to me carry the subject line, "Hey, Hack!") 

But to my surprise he readily agreed.  "Birth of a Hack" is too newspaper-specific; the book has broadened into a memoir of my writing life, my life as a storyteller, and there are entire chapters that move out of the newsroom.  Keeping the Hack title makes it feel odd--one friend who was reading an early draft got annoyed every time I went to Russia or North Carolina or somewhere. "Get back to the newsroom," she said, and I see why she felt that way, but I can't. My life story doesn't follow a clear narrative arc (would you trust it if it did?) and there were times when I did leave the newsroom and did do other things that made me a better writer and a better storyteller.

So I think the solution is in a new title.

Many of you read the Hack stories early on, when they were nothing more than blog postings. It might be hard for you to think of the book with a different name.  But if you have suggestions, I'm ready to hear them.

I like simple titles. I like "The Writing Life," (taken by Annie Dillard), or "A Writer's Life" (Gay Talese was there first) and "How I Grew," (copyright Mary McCarthy). But I probably need something that isn't quite that simple because I don't have the famous name to attach to it. "A Writer's Life" by Gay Talese is going to draw admirers and readers, but "A Writer's Life" by some unknown person in Minnesota is not going to draw very much of anything.

Ideas? Suggestions? Should I offer a prize? I can do that. I can offer a prize.

Autographs of the rich and famous

I do not know if Sunday night's host was truly autographing paper plates for the party guests, but that is what he appeared to be doing. I didn't want to hang around and gawk in case someone thought that I was waiting for a plate of my own; I wasn't; I don't collect such stuff.

I've never been big on autographs. I did stand in line once to get Rick Bragg's autograph, but that was a present for my friend Katy.  She had written a story for the New Orleans paper about a colorful character called Uncle Pat, and then Bragg wrote a story about the same guy for the New York Times.

So I went to one of his readings and then waited in line at Hungry Mind bookstore and asked him to autograph his book for Katy.  He wrote, "Katy, I bet your Uncle Pat story was better than mine."  Very nice.

And I have a copy of "The Bridges of Madison County" which was autographed for me. One of my brothers waited in line for a long, long time to get it autographed--remember how popular that book was?  I did not tell my brother that I thought the book was awful.  I will keep that book forever as a reminder of how wonderful my brother is.

The one autographed book that I cherish, though, is a paperback edition of Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange." What a fabulous futuristic chilling horrifying novel that is.  Katy and I were in Scotland one year, in Edinburgh, when we happened to see a poster announcing a conversation with Burgess the next evening. So we bought tickets. 

It was a wonderful evening, a true conversation, with Burgess and the interviewer sitting on stage in big easy chairs. I think it was theater in the round, and Katy and I were sitting up high and it was just like peering into someone's living room.

They sat and chatted, and Burgess talked about how he came to write the book (he needed the money, essentially) and it was all so civilized and interesting. When it was over, I bought the book and waited in line.

He asked me my name, and I said, "Laurie," and then watched as he started writing. He wrote, "To M" and i shouted out, "No! Laurie! With an L!"

And Burgess paused and said, "Oh, dear. I thought you said Maury!" And he thought a while, and then he continued.

The inscription reads: "To My Dear Laurie, XXX, Anthony Burgess, 10.10.92."

This book, too, I am keeping forever.

What autographs do you cherish? What memorabilia is important to you?

Party

the house is enormous, and while it's not furnished in an ostentatious manner, its size alone is ostentatious. it has formal gardens in back, with a fountain, and a lovely slate patio, all rain-soaked last night, and rooms and rooms and rooms. i loved the porch. (below)

someone, not me, not anyone i know, dropped a wine glass on the hardwood floor. the servers rushed over and cleaned it up.

the famous host was barefoot and mostly aloof (you can see him in the photo above, in black tshirt; the guy in the hawaiian shirt is a photographer and the party was to celebrate a book they had done together), but i introduced myself right before leaving and he shook my hand and asked me about the newspaper and said, "and do you write book reviews, too?" which seemed like such a peculiar question that i said, more pertly than i intended, "yes, but you'd have to read the newspaper to see them."

and he said he likes picking up newspapers whenever he's traveling, and sometimes he even reads them (by which i understand him to say that he likes newspapers more in theory than reality), and then he went on a bit about the new york times being in trouble, and then all of a sudden, after about five or ten miutes, he just abrupty turned around and walked away and i guess my audience was over.

he was autographing paper plates for some of the guests. at least, i think that's what he was doing. i knew precisely three people there, and if they hadn't been there i would not have stayed beyond the speeches.

UPDATE: One of you suggested I let you know what I thought of the book. I wrote a very short review in February.  I've pasted it below:

Tom Arndt's world is populated by grungy carnies, farmers and teenagers in tight blue jeans. He's all about the inner city -- car dealerships on Lake Street, boomboxes on Portland Avenue and folks who are riding the bus. He also likes small towns, festivals and homey diners. His world has no suburbs.

This wonderful collection of his Minnesota photographs, published to coincide with an exhibit opening this weekend at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, spans nearly 40 years. There's a lot to look at in these large black-and-white photos -- downtown cafeterias and threshing bees, all-star wrestlers and old Twin Cities landmarks, and faces.Wonderful faces, sometimes staring you right in the eye.

Even more interesting to me are his notes at the end, where he tells the story behind each image. It's fascinating to see him confess his early shyness at photographing people, or explain how he does street photography ("It is important that your camera is always focused and the exposure set"), or hear what the folks he was documenting told him about their lives.

The book's foreword, by Garrison Keillor, is written with great affection for the state. And you can tell that Arndt has great affection for the people he sees through his viewfinder. That makes you like them too.

My garden at solstice

Coffee on the back porch

High summer, suddenly, and the days are long and full. This morning we moved our breakfast coffee to the back screen porch instead of the front three-season porch. We feel a little on display out here, with the screen porch elevated like a stage, but we can also better smell our neighbors' peonies, and listen to those noisy birds (and the roar of the garbage trucks).

I've been using spare time--Sunday afternoons, mornings--to work on my book, and I'm happy to report that Chapter 11 is in good shape, a draft solidly done, and I am taking Friday off work to plunge into Chapter 12, which I believe will be the final chapter.

I think I will make that August first deadline after all, though I clearly did not make the secret unreasonable deadline I had set for myself, which was February.

Boscoe had another all-day glucose-curve test this week, and the results show he's doing well on the insulin. He looks old and shaky some days and perky and youthful others; that's what getting old is like, I guess. Not a steady arc, but up and down. Last night he was racing around the yard, playing with Riley. I stood and watched and watched.

On Sunday I have to go to a party at the home of a tall local writer who has a radio show. No names, please; I'd like to keep this out of Google. And do not be impressed, not even the least little bit; I do not know the man and not once has he returned a phone call for an interview, even when another tall local writer died and I was just looking for a quote. The party is to celebrate the publication of a book, which is why I've been invited.

If you are all very nice and good I will write about the party here later. The writer, who claims shyness, yesterday posted a bunch of pictures of his house (inside and out) on his facebook page, so I don't think I will be violating much privacy if I tell you a little about the party. Assuming I go. With me and parties, it's always touch and go.

Vi's Freezer

We have spent the last month or so helping to empty out Doug's mother's house, which has finally sold after about eight months on the market. It's a sweet little house with a huge back yard, and a young family will be moving in. This makes us happy. But emptying the house--this makes us tired. There is just so much stuff. As I have already written about here.

By yesterday, we were down to the nitty-gritty. We'd donated furniture, hauled boxes, filled a Dumpster, called in Doug's nephew to take whatever he wanted. We were left with usable junk, which the junk guy was taking. And we were left with Vi's freezer.

Vi is Doug's aunt. She will turn 90 in July, and lives in an apartment in Milwaukee. She is tough and feisty and bossy, an older sister who grew up on a farm in the Dakotas in a house with a dirt floor. She's chatty; I could listen to her talk all day, and I sometimes surreptitiously write down Vi-isms: Pots and pans are "kittles." Taverns are "beer parlors." Mechanics are "garagemen." Liquid soap is "runny soap." If she doesn't know what something is, she just gives it a name and keeps talking.

She is hilarious. She is stubborn. And she is cheap. It's not her fault; she lived through the Great Depression and then married a man who spent a lot of time (and money) down at the beer parlor. She kept things together. She made things work. And once, when she was flush--maybe thirty years ago or so--she bought a chest freezer.

It's big. It stands up, like a refrigerator, and it takes up space. When Vi moved from the Dakotas to the Twin Cities to live with her sister (Doug's mom), she brought the freezer with her. She sold her condo, sold her furniture, sold most of her stuff, but she lugged that freezer with her across the prairie.

Doug's mom, of course, already had a freezer. So for the five years they lived together, there were two freezers, side by side in the basement laundry room, keeping things cold. Lots of things. Way more food than two old ladies could ever, ever eat. But both freezers were packed full all the time. This is the Depression-survivor way, I think. Never again will they starve!

About five years ago, Vi's health began to decline, and she moved to Milwaukee to be near her son. She left in haste and in pain, and she left the freezer behind.

A month ago, when the house sold, Doug's mom called Vi to tell her the good news. And the first thing Vi said was, "You're not getting rid of that freezer!"

It was a command, a command from a big sister. Doug's mom is 79 years old, but Vi is still older and still expects to be obeyed.

"That's a good freezer!" Vi said. Her granddaughters, she said, might want it some day. (Some day, maybe, but not now; they're college students.)

What to do? Nobody needs a freezer. Vi lives in a senior apartment and takes all her meals in the cafeteria. Doug's mom lives in a senior apartment and takes half of her meals in the cafeteria. Doug's sister lives alone and doesn't need a big freezer. Doug and I already have a freezer, which has been unplugged and empty ever since we stopped making our own dog food.

Vi does not want it given away. Vi does not want it sold. It's a good freezer.

Busybody me, envisioning the freezer somehow ending up at our house, had lots of suggestions. Tell her you'll sell it and send her the money. Tell her that she has 30 days to get her son, or someone, to pick up the freezer and after that it's gone. Tell her it's broken, and then have the junk guys haul it away.

Yesterday, the junk guy came to the house and hauled away the last of the stuff. Some broken furniture, an old stepstool, a wringer washer from ages and ages ago. The little house is finally empty, for the first time in fifty years.

And the freezer?

You know where the freezer is.

The freezer is in our garage.

And one of us is parking on the street.

Two Big Dublin Churches

St. Patrick's Cathedral

We'd been to the grounds of St. Patrick's many times but for some reason had never gone inside until this trip. We knew that Oliver Cromwell had arrogantly stabled his horses here, and that was pretty much all we knew.


It was gorgeous inside, and echoey, with beautiful tile floors, chilly stone walls, and soaring arched ceilings. A little gift shop had been set up right inside the front door, kind of among these chairs, which was a little odd, but I guess there was nowhere else to put it and of course every church needs a gift shop.

I lit a candle for my father, and a candle for my sister. I never know if this is all right to do, since I'm not Catholic (of course, neither is St. Patrick's--it's actually Church of Ireland) but it is something they would both have liked.


Outside, the site of St. Patrick's Well is now covered over with grass and the stone that marked it has been moved inside. It is the site where St. Patrick baptized his converts.

It's the biggest and longest church in Dublin, which is why Cromwell thought it would be useful for his horses.  After he left (this was in the 17th century, when he stormed through Ireland causing so much terror and devastation) the church was pretty much wrecked.  Beer to the rescue!  It was the Guinness family that paid for the restoration.

Oh, and an aside note; something I learned when we were in Wicklow: Do not make Oliver Cromwell jokes. The feelings about him are still raw.

Old churches like this one are always as much museum as place of worship. They have monuments and plaques and statues and all kinds of memorabilia for all kinds of people--saints and politicians and war dead and wealthy donors, all in sort of a hodge-podge, no particular order, just crammed into the walls wherever they can, in a variety of type styles and languages, spanning hundreds and hundreds of years. It makes the church feel vibrant, as it continues to hold significance in people's lives (and deaths) over the centuries.

Jonathan Swift--he of "Gulliver's Travels" and "A Modest Proposal"--was dean here for thirty years. He is buried here, with an epitaph that was translated by William Butler Yeats. It says, "Swift has sailed into his rest; savage indignation there cannot lacerate his breast."

The cathedral holds evensong nearly every day and we meant to go back, but we never did. So--another reason to return to  Dublin some day.

Christ Church Cathedral

Christ Church is not far from St. Patrick's. Why two cathedrals? Because Christ Church was built inside the city walls, and St. Patrick's was outside. 


St. Patrick's dates to the 1100s, but Christ Church is a hundred years older. 

Henry II came here for Christmas services in 1171. King Edward VI--the boy king who was meant to depose Henry VII--was coronated here.  And this is Strongbow, who helped rebuild the church.

Ah. And this--this--is the heart of Lawrence O'Toole, hanging on a wall.

He was archbishop of Dublin in the 1100s and worked with Strongbow to restore the cathedral. He was a lot of fun, wearing a hair shirt on a regular basis and going to stay in St. Kevin's Cave at Glendalough for a month at a time. (And did they both stay there at the same time? How did they fit?) 

He never drank wine, but colored his water to look like wine because he didn't want to be, you know, showy about his teetotalism.

He died in France and his heart was cut out and sent back to his church and locked up as a holy relic. And oh those who think history is boring just aren't paying attention.

It's locked up inside this metal heart, inside this cage, and it's been there since 1200 or so, and you can't help but wonder what it might look like now.

Drinking with Brendan Behan

You might think I've milked that Ireland trip for every story I could tell, but you would be wrong. I could go on and on and on (and often do).

Hiking to James Joyce's Martello tower? Taking the 1916 Rebellion Walking Tour? (Just in case the posting on Kilmainham Gaol hadn't depressed you enough.) Encountering the friendly man in Blackrock who wanted to tell us everything he knew about his town? Touring Christchurch Cathedral one day, St. Patrick's another? (And did you know that in Christchurch they have someone's heart on display? Truly; it's one of the holy relics.) Yep; I could go on and on.

But I will tell you one just more story--about the Literary Pub Crawl, because it was interesting, and because the guy who gave the tour is a friend of Babaloo's--and then I will quietly shut the computer and write no more about Ireland (until the next visit). Otherwise I'd have to change the name of this blog to something like "A Wee Bit o' Green" or something, and that would be hokey.

The first thing we did was gather at the Duke Pub just off of Grafton Street to wait for the tour to begin. The second thing we did was order a couple of pints, because we had arrived early. And the third thing we did was suddenly shriek, plow through our purse (my purse, actually) and tear through all of our pockets and then come to the sad conclusion that I, the journalist, had forgotten my pen. I could not take notes.

So you will have to trust my memory on this.

The nice man who took the tickets in his low-key way led us into an upstairs room of the Duke, whipped out a bowler hat, and suddenly turned into one of the characters from "Waiting for Godot." He and a second man performed one of the scenes ("He's not coming, I know he's not coming...") and then removed the hats and became ordinary people once again.

From there, it was on to Trinity College, and then from pub to pub to pub, where he'd tell us about writers who drank there (depending on the pub, Flann O'Brien, Brendan Behan--wait, that was all the pubs--James Joyce, Eavann Boland, and since I forgot my pen you'll just have to guess at the rest). 

He'd tell some great little story or another--about Brendan Behan's father in law, for example, who painted the murals inside Davy Byrne's, a pub that is also known for its appearance in "Ulysses" as the place where Leopold Bloom ordered his cheese sandwich--or maybe recite some poetry, or perform a quick scene, or sing a song, and then he'd ask us a quiz question.We were not to answer then, but at the end of the tour, when we had the chance of winning either a tshirt or a small bottle of whiskey.

The answers to all the quiz questions could be found along the tour, if you were paying attention, but hell, we were all drinking, and it was hard to pay attention, and, as I mentioned, I'd forgotten my pen. So even if I figured out the answer (as I did, more than once) chances were I'd forget it before we got to the last stop (as I did).

We were supposed to spend 20 minutes in each pub--enough time for a glass, not a pint, as far as I was concerned, but others on the tour were more diligent--but at the first pub stop everyone lingered and he had to go back and round us up, and after that he took to ringing a bell as a signal that the tour was moving on.

Of course, a bell is also the sound you hear when the publican calls Time! and so it tended to upset everyone else in the pub.

Our last stop was Davy Byrne's, which is where he asked us all the quiz questions, and I failed to win the tshirt or the whiskey, but that was fine; first prize went to a dark horse of a woman who looked like someone's elderly aunt and who had clearly been paying attention, not drinking, and taking notes.

The whole thing was great fun, but it didn't get over until after 10:30, and all the pubs and restaurants had stopped serving food and we had had no dinner.  So we walked the twenty minutes back to our hotel along the Grand Canal, hungry and a little drunk (this might have been our "Let's Not Even Go to Raleigh" moment), and asked at the front desk if it would be at all possible to order room service.

"Certainly," the receptionist said. "And what would you like?"

I was used to looking at a menu in such circumstances, but no menu was to be had; she suggested we just order whatever we wanted and see what showed up.  So we ordered hot grilled chicken paninis, and what showed up twenty minutes later was cold chicken sandwiches on white bread with shredded cheese sprinkled on top--hands down the weirdest meal we had on the trip.  But it filled us up and soaked up enough of the Guinness that we were able to get to sleep.

Should I quit my job?

I was writing you all a blog posting when this email message came in: 

We are happy to notify you that your e-mail address was selected which won you 850,000.00 POUNDS in our on-going 2009 award presentation.Contact maxralph100@live.com for claims.

So today is my lucky day; I'm off to collect my winnings; the blog posting will have to wait. (Now don't all of you go writing to maxralph in my stead!  That 850,000 pounds is rightfully mine!)

(Note: I really did get this email. But it reminds me; go pick up this book: "I Do Not Come to You by Chance," a new novel by a Nigerian author named Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani. It's about the guys in Nigeria who send these scamming emails, and it's a wonderful, rich read.)

Spring

A week or so ago, I was walking Riley down at the lake when I heard a great commotion. Two ducks rushed out of the weeds, um, hooked together. The drake was behind, and the female was marching in circles, the drake waddling back and forth, trying to stay, um, attached. The female was quacking loudly.

I stared until it occurred to me that this was a private moment, and then I hustled Riley on down the path.

A few nights later, we saw a couple of somethings ... woodchucks? Water rats? Some brown and furry creatures, anyway, cavorting on a mudbar. This time I didn't stop to gawk, but averted my eyes and kept going. Riley, who has disapproved of such nonsense ever since his Great Operation, averted his eyes, too.

You know what they say in journalism; three makes a trend. All I needed was one more sighting and I could officially report to you that mating is all the vogue.

Sadly, I have not seen a third instance, but tonight I saw evidence that mating had occurred, and that's almost as good. A giant turtle had dug a hole in the sandy soil between the walking path and the lake. Riley and Boscoe and I happened upon her on the evening walk in a lovely soft rain. The turtle had her back end in the hole and her head pulled mostly into her shell.

I have watched these giant turtles lay their eggs in springs past, and the egg drops out shaped like a teardrop, but firms up roundly once it has dropped and turns white.

Then they spend some time making swimming motions with their legs, to push the loose dirt back over the eggs. This can take quite a while, because turtles, as you know, are seldom in a hurry.

This turtle, though, was not moving. Riley wanted to sniff her, but I pulled him on down the trail. Either she was dead, in which case sex had done her in, or she was alive, and if he got too close she would do him in.

Either way, I figured we should keep moving. But I'll be looking for her tomorrow morning, to see if she's still there and still not moving, or if she's gone, which means there will be baby turtles some time fairly soon.

Sunday morning update: As Indigo Bunting had predicted, last night's turtle was gone. But on the other side of the lake, we found another one (pictured above), as well as evidence of a third (a big round of dug-up dirt, covered over and, presumably, containing turtle eggs).

It was a misty, cool morning and excellent for birds. This guy flew overhead repeatedly, squawking his raspy call, perhaps looking for a mate:

A visit to the Nerd Museums

Most people go to Dublin for the pubs, the music, the people-watching, the bookstores, the strolls along the Liffey, the buskers, the great cathedrals, the history, the grand literary tradition, the lovely accents, all that green.

We went for those reasons, too. But we also went for the quirky, nerdy museums that only a certain kind of bookish introvert could love. Such as, ahem, us.

Marsh's Library

This is right around the corner from St. Patrick's, down a stone staircase, across a rainy courtyard, through an ivy-twined arch, up a steep staircase.


It's a wonderful old library, long and narrow, with ancient books and a crisp, dry smell of old leather and brittle paper. The oldest public library in Ireland, though now more museum than usable library. (You can still look at books there, but you have to make your request in advance, and have a good reason. The books are ancient, valuable, and falling apart.)


If you turn right at the end of the long narrow room--the only way you can turn--you get to the cages. A hundred years ago--two hundred years ago, or three hundred--if people requested small books, easily concealed about one's person, they were locked in a cage while they did their research.


Even though we had been happily taking flash-less pictures for a half-hour, we were suddenly told no photographs (and the quiet, pleasant librarian pointed to a tattered yellowed "no cameras" poster that had been hung in an obscure out of the way corner), so we didn't photograph the cages. But here is a picture from google:


It was a beautiful place, with domed ceilings to let in natural light (which of course is causing the old books to fall apart) and that rich bookish hush of old-fashioned libraries. I would not have minded being locked in there, not one bit, though I might have chosen a cage that lacked a skull.

The Chester Beatty Library

A marvelous collection of ancient manuscripts--vellum, papyrus, illuminated manuscripts of the Quran and the Bible--and ancient handbound books with hand-tooled leather covers and glorious end sheets and hand-set texts. 

Little video screens play movies that demonstrate the ancient art of bookbinding, which filled me with joy and despair. Books at one time were so revered they were treated in an almost holy way, bedecked with jewels and gold leaf, painstakingly put together, one by one, in a process that could take weeks.

As I walked past the glass display cases of these beautiful artifacts from around the world, my mind kept saying one word: Kindle.

The museum is in a graceful new building sandwiched between ancient stone buildings in Dublin Castle. This picture is of the airy courtyard in between, which leads to the gift shop and the cafe.

The National Print Museum

Not far from our hotel on the Grand Canal, the National Print Museum is a place perfect for the wanderings of a couple of nostalgic reporters who remember the good old days of journalism.

Big old printing presses, great wooden cabinets of type and space bars, the smell of metal and ink, filtered sunlight, worn, wooden printers tables....

Here words fail me and I let photographs take over.

Would it surprise you to know that we were the only visitors on this chilly morning?

All righty, then

Clearly I have depressed all of you into silence with yesterday's posting about Kilmainham Gaol. You came, you read, you slunk away without comment, in too much despair to carry on.

So here's a pleasant, random picture from the trip to take your mind off the gloom.

We were in Blackrock when we took this picture. I think they're bowling, but I'm not entirely sure. Those of you who know about Ireland can perhaps fill us in on the details.

I remember reading somewhere about how, in the old days, in the west of Ireland, people would set up bowling games on the country roads. That was back when traffic was nothing more than an occasional donkey cart hauling peat; you'd be killed if you tried that now.

But I don't know if that's what these people are playing. We stopped a couple of gardai who were walking by and asked them, but they didn't seem to know any more than just "bowling." Of course in American bowling there aren't anywhere near this many balls.

So what game is this?

Along the Grand Canal: Swans and rebellion

The walk to the jail was leisurely, along the serene Grand Canal. We took the narrow paved footpath past ducks and swans, past old wooden locks, past a statue of poet Patrick Kavanaugh, sitting on a bench.

Beyond Portobello College the narrow grassy banks flattened out a bit, and on this lovely breezy day people were tossing bread crumbs to the birds, and sleeping in the grass. In the sun it was almost hot, and nobody was moving very fast.

It was a five-mile walk to Kilmainham Gaol, a place notorious in Irish history. It was here that starving people--children, too--were confined during the Famine Years, usually for stealing a loaf of bread or poaching from a landlord's estate. A brother and sister were locked up for two months for stealing a handful of gooseberries. Imagine how hungry they must have been.

But Kilmainham Gaol is now primarily thought of as the place where the heroes of the 1916 Easter Rising were executed.

It is a cold and depressing place, a hulking stone building with narrow corridors and tiny cells. Our tour guide--you cannot roam the jail independently, but must stay with a guide--was a friendly man named Donal, who had the same fervency that we encountered with other guides in other parts of Dublin: a clear desire for us to understand Irish history.

He took us past the cells where Padraig Pearse and his brother Willie and Joseph Plunkett and the others were held before they were killed. He pointed out the cell where Eamon de Valera, later the first President of Ireland, was held. (de Valera was born in America, and so escaped execution.)

And then out to the walled courtyard where the executions took place. It was a sad, stark place--high stone walls, no grass, nothing green, just two small black crosses to mark where the men had died.

Padraig Pearse, poet and scholar, was the first to be executed. He and fourteen others were shot, three or four each day, at one end of the courtyard. They were blindfolded, their hands tied.

The last to be executed was Joseph Connelly, who had been incarcerated at Dublin Castle, tended to by the Red Cross. He had been seriously injured in the fighting and could not stand. He was tied to a chair, brought into Kilmainham through the big doors you see in the picture, and shot sitting down.

That black cross marks the place of his death.


From there we filed back through the jail and out into the bright sunshine for the long walk back to the city. The lilacs were blooming, the swans were gliding; it was a grim and beautiful day.